Laura Emerson returns to Toledo TV news at NBC 24

Veteran newscaster Laura Emerson, who co-anchored FOX Toledo News from its 1996 inception through 2012, returned to Toledo news on WNWO NBC 24 on Aug. 10.

Emerson joins Jim Blue as co-anchor during the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts, with Blue continuing his joint duties as managing editor. General Manager John Nizamis said Emerson will anchor Sunday through Thursday, with Blue handling Monday through Friday, so that viewers see “a member of our A-team covering all the nights that really matter.”

Laura Emerson. Photo Courtesy NBC 24

Emerson spent the past three years in Paducah, Kentucky, with NBC affiliate WPSD, where she anchored the 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts. Paducah’s TV market size is comparable to Toledo by combining three cities in different states into one market, but Toledo is where Emerson wanted to be.

“I’m not here by accident,” Emerson said. “I really want to be here.”

Emerson said her former station “had a good news operation,” but the opportunity to return to Toledo and work specifically at NBC 24 was too good to pass up.

“I see this as an opportunity and it’s going to take a lot of time,” Emerson said. “We have an owner that likes to win, and has turned other stations around. A lot of things are going in the right direction. This station has suffered from some years of neglect. They’ve allowed their news presence to shrink and that’s something we need to rebuild now.”

Station officials say they are thrilled to have someone of Emerson’s caliber who knows the area and who is well respected.

“When Laura came into the equation, it made so much sense,” Nizamis said. “And it gives us a little more credibility than bringing in someone new. How can we go wrong with that? I could not be happier, because the level of experience and maturity, coupled with Jim — as we start to surround them with other talent — that they’ll really be role models for our younger talent.”

Having worked in Toledo before, Emerson is well aware of NBC 24’s modest position in local television ratings, which makes the task at hand all the more desirable.

“I’m in this to eventually make some gains and have some wins,” Emerson said. “One of the reasons I’m not afraid is because I went through the same thing with FOX Toledo. At least here there’s a news presence, and it does have some history, which is more than what we started with at FOX Toledo.”

Emerson said she never really wanted to leave Toledo in the first place. As a result of FOX Toledo’s eventual sale to another owner, its news department was closed in 2012 and WTOL-11 assumed a shared services agreement to operate FOX Toledo News, forcing Emerson to look elsewhere for work.

Emerson was on the cover of the Jan. 1, 2012, Toledo Free Press at the time she was leaving Toledo and moving to a station in Kentucky.

Emerson described Paducah as a smaller town experience, but with some similarities.

“But I definitely missed the diversity, the shopping, the restaurants, the larger town amenities,” Emerson said. “I miss the art community here, and we had a decent art community in Paducah. (Toledo) has the reputation of being a Rust Belt industrial city from the outside but until people come here they have no idea.”

Emerson officially started on the job Aug. 4, and has already run into colleagues enthusiastically welcoming her back to the area.

“It’s been reunion week for me,” Emerson said. “I have friends at the other stations. I have an equal number of friends at 11 and 13, and feel more connected to them because of the movement of personnel (after FOX Toledo’s sale in 2012).”

NBC 24 also made significant internal moves back in April, bringing in five top level managers from a Fort Wayne station.

“I’ve met all of the people from the Fort Wayne, Indiana station, and it’s exciting to see how cohesive the group is, how they like each other,” Emerson said. “I don’t know how we got so lucky to have a group of people that likes to work together so much. So often in this industry there are people with different goals that don’t get along. Here, they’re on the same page. I think that will service us well in the future.”

NBC 24 chose not to offer nonstop daytime news coverage of the recent water crisis on the notion that there wasn’t enough material to sustain the effort. Nizamis said their decision was appreciated by some in the public.

“We evaluated our performance on the water crisis against ourselves,” Nizamis said. “The other guys are better equipped to do the things they do. We just want to be better. That’s the kind of progress we’re looking to make. I don’t want to make any bold predictions or promises, because then you start letting people down. We stay in the moment, acknowledge where we are and what we need to do. Hopefully people will start to take notice in the next 60 to 90 days.”

Culbreath: Compassion on tap

We’re about a week removed from the Aquageddon, as some have called it. The bizarre two-and-a-half days where a good chunk of Northwest Ohio was told to step away from the taps in their houses. It was a bizarre weekend that everyone from the experts to the armchair quarterbacks will be breaking down for months. What went wrong? What went right? What could have gone better? It will, oddly enough, sound a lot like postgame coverage of a football game. “Well, the communication breakdown between the quarterback and the rest of the offense meant that there was confusion out in the secondary.”

Woo, that sounds about right.

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Interestingly enough, while I spent my Saturday with the rest of the crew at 1370 WSPD providing coverage, I managed to weasel my way out of Sunday: I had long ago set aside the time to drive down to Columbus with the family to see my daughter receive an award from the Girl Scouts at the Ohio State Fair. It was a fun time, but driving back up felt awkward. “Why are we going back in to the emergency?” we asked each other more than once.

But, as we now know, the city was not in post-apocalyptic ruins after this weekend. In fact, the whole affair showed that Northwest Ohio came together to help each other out. Those with water made sure it got to those who didn’t. Those who could go out and get it made sure it got to those who couldn’t. Hell, even crime took a back seat for the weekend.

Rest assured, this weekend was not a “business as usual” weekend, and that could be said for the numerous football teams who were supposed to start their camps this weekend. So it’s with that in mind that I want to make sure a couple of really great stories from this past weekend get highlighted.

First, the story that NBC 24 highlighted regarding the Toledo Rockets. With their fall camp set to begin and their taps turned off, they turned their sights toward the safe waters of an old rival: Bowling Green State University. Director of Sports Medicine Brian Jones called down to Wood County to ask if they could grab some aqua, and not only did they say yes, but when the Rockets players arrived with every water jug they could find, they found Falcons waiting for them with hoses in hand.

If it sounds a little too cheesy to call it “enemies coming together,” that’s because it absolutely is. First and foremost, this was not a football situation, this was a health situation. But on top of that, UT and BG aren’t enemies, they’re rivals. A rivalry is built upon the respect that two programs build up for each other. You might not like them, you might even, to paraphrase Vince Vaughn in “Anchorman,” “pure straight hate them.” But boy, do you respect them. And respect for that program means that when they get their knees taken out from underneath them by no doing of their own, you make sure they’re on equal footing before you square off.

Secondly, the stories that didn’t get much more than a blip on the constant scroll from this weekend’s wall-to-wall coverage: a big round of applause to the high schools in the area that shut down their athletic events over the weekend. Unlike the University of Toledo, the resources just weren’t there for these kids to practice or play safely. For the first practices of the year, water was going to be in high demand, and most schools get through it by hooking up the hose. Again, when you’re dealing with the health and safety of kids, the grandeur of sports just takes a back seat. Kudos to those in charge for putting the kids first.

It’s in moments of crisis that we see the good of people around us. Forget the gougers and the hoarders, we saw humanity at it’s absolute best this weekend, and much like the glass of water we can now drink from the tap, it’s awfully refreshing.

WNWO, Buckeye reach agreement

NBC is back on Buckeye CableSystem for the first time in seven months after two media companies reached an agreement, NBC 24 General Manager John Nazamis confirmed to Toledo Free Press.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns the local NBC affiliate WNWO, and Buckeye signed a two-year agreement July 14.

“I am pleased to welcome WNWO back to Buckeye, the area’s number one television service provider,” said Jeff Abbas, Buckeye’s president and general manager, in a July 14 statement.

“We are very happy to have reached an agreement with Buckeye through good faith negotiations between both parties and without government intervention to obtain fair compensation for the WNWO-TV programming,” said Barry Faber, executive vice president and general counsel for Sinclair, in a July 15 statement. “We again apologize to Buckeye subscribers for any inconvenience this situation has caused, however, now that an agreement has been reached, Buckeye’s subscribers can once again enjoy the live, local news and popular syndicated and network programming airing on WNWO-TV. We wish to thank our viewers for their patience and outreach to Buckeye over the past several months.”

Specific terms of the agreement were not released, but both parties agreed to withdraw the complaints they had filed against each other with the FCC.

According to a July 15 news release from Sinclair: “In addition to customary terms and conditions, the agreement provides for Buckeye to pay a signing bonus to WNWO-TV, which is in an amount that more than covers the legal fees incurred as a result of a complaint filed by Buckeye at the Federal Communications Commission alleging that Sinclair had failed to negotiate in good faith. Such complaint will be withdrawn in connection with the new agreement.”

The seven-month dispute stemmed from a disagreement over the price for programming asked by Sinclair for WNWO. Buckeye deemed the price too high so Sinclair ordered Buckeye to stop airing NBC programming in mid-December. Negotiations between Buckeye and Sinclair stalled in February without reaching an agreement.

Buckeye had been providing its customers with a monthly credit of $0.24 to reflect the amount Buckeye previously paid for the NBC station. The credit will stop, but Buckeye does not plan to raise the cost to subscribers at this time, according to its release. In addition, if Sinclair launches a new cable channel, Buckeye will carry it.

Wounded warriors

On June 1, I awoke with a sore left knee and a right hamstring that protested even the slightest movement. I do not believe I will ever be so grateful to be strained and in low-grade pain.

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The day before, I shared a field with the Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team, armed forces veterans who sacrificed arms, legs, hands, feet and untold other elements of their lives in the service of our country. Aching muscles were an embarrassing complaint compared to the prosthetics those men must use every day.

The Wounded Warriors played three games May 31 at Ned Skeldon Stadium, raising more than $18,000 during their time here.

The group’s core effort consists of three missions: “To raise awareness and enlist the public’s aid for the needs of injured service members, to help injured service members aid and assist each other, and to provide unique, direct programs and services to meet the needs of injured service members.” These are men like Zachary “Beef” Briseno, a Marine who lost both legs below the knee in Iraq and yet still plays softball, hunts, lifts weights and coaches his son’s baseball team. Men like Kyle Earl, a Marine whose right hand was amputated during service in Iraq but who still plays hockey, football and softball. Men like Matias Ferreira, a Marine who lost both legs below the knee in Iraq and yet skydives, dances, snowboards and bikes.

These are men who redefine concepts like toughness, perseverance and grace.

I never played organized baseball or softball growing up. I did play on the NASA softball team during a summer in Washington, D.C., but was smart enough to not swing for the fences when playing against the IRS and Department of the Treasury teams.

But when Newsradio 1370 WSPD’s Fred LeFebvre asked for volunteers to form a media team to play the Wounded Warriors, there was no way I was going to say no. We all knew going in we were signing up for a probable ass-kicking, and not one of us hesitated.

The Wounded Warriors beat the Metro Police/Firefighters team in extra innings but then lost to the Allshred Services/Pacesetter Property Management tournament team, which left them tired but determined to whoop on some local “celebrities.” Close to 30 of us assembled, with no practice, to form our team, managed by Al Seeger. There were a number of former Detroit Tigers serving as our ringers (Stan Clarke, Tom Matchick, Mickey Stanley, Dave Rozema, Jon Worden, Milt Wilcox and Willie Horton as well as former Cleveland Indian and 1980 American League Rookie of the Year Joe Charboneau), but I was most excited to meet football legend Chuck Ealey, the University of Toledo and Canadian Football League quarterback who never lost a football game during his career. Ealey was friendly and accommodating, a true pleasure to meet. I was less impressed with some of the former pros, a couple of whom spoke about the women on our team like we were in a 1972 locker room.

Among the many media people on the team were WSPD morning show producers Don Zellers and Adam Ragle, and Joe Thompson and Tori Carmen of NBC 24. Ragle and I had been talking for weeks about our relative lack of softball skills and how we just wanted to get through the game without major injury to body or pride.

The pregame ceremonies included a home run hitting demonstration, an appearance by veteran Matthew Drake, an honor guard and a medley of military anthems danced to by the Off Broadway Dance Company, decked out in red-white-and-blue-spangled vests. The national anthem was beautifully performed by Yvonne Ramos, who contributed to our 2012 Make-A-Wish holiday CD; her rendition was so powerful and moving, each of the Wounded Warriors lined up to hug her with thanks, even as the last echoes of her vocals faded from the stadium.

The game started with the first few innings played by our Tigers ringers, who jumped out to a several-run lead. But any illusions we had of competing were dashed when the media members and celebrities took over. I had carefully watched the first few innings, during which not one hit came anywhere near third base, so that was the position I covered. The umpire there greeted me with, “Taking the hot corner, are you?” to which I responded, “No, I am third base. If I had known they called it the hot corner, I’d have stayed in the dugout.”

The Wounded Warriors did things on prosthetics I would not have dreamed of doing in my athletic prime. As an offensive lineman for the Libbey High School Cowboys in the mid-1980s, I was about force, not finesse. These men ran, rolled and hustled with a purpose that inspired awe and respect in vast measures.

Nothing came my way that inning, though I did manage to catch one ball Zellers threw my way. It was actually kind of rolling to a stop in front of me as I set my borrowed glove down before it. I was still excited enough to show the umpire, as if I had made a deciding catch in a World Series Game 7, prompting someone in the stands to heckle my glee, but I did not care; of all the possible embarrassing fielding outcomes, none transpired.

“Hammer” Ragle led off the next inning and slapped a single into right field, so there was a man on first as I approached the plate. I took a few quick swings and tried to remember coaching advice I had seen in baseball movies. The only thing I could think of was Kevin Costner’s line in “Bull Durham” about “long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days,” which wasn’t relevant and didn’t help. The first pitch arced in low and hit the dirt right in front of me, an obvious ball. I stepped out of the batter’s box and then took my “stance” waiting for the next pitch.

I swung, connected, and the ball sailed over the pitcher’s head, a line drive single to center field. I did my best imitation of running to first base, absolutely soaring to get a hit.

It was one of the three greatest athletic moments of my life, the others being a 1985 senior high school football game against St. John’s (no Jesuit in the name then) and the session that led to the conception of my first son.

The joy lasted until I realized just how far away second base looked. Radio personality Sid Siddall was up next, and he hit a single that scored Ragle and allowed me to lumber to second base. It was then that I first thought I might actually have a chance to score a run. With my little boys and wife in the stands cheering me on, it was a tantalizing and previously unconsidered chance at glory. But Zellers took the plate and his contact with the ball sent it straight toward third base. I tried, though, barreling as fast as I could, pushing my protesting legs.

Predictably, I was outplayed by a catcher with one arm and a baseman with two prosthetic legs.

I went back to the dugout happy and fist-bumped Ragle on our achievement, which I know, in the presence of the Wounded Warriors, was pathetic, but we were still happy. In fact, when Zellers asked me if I was going back on the field, I declined, ostensibly so someone else could take a turn, but primarily because why mess up a .1000 career batting average? Zellers, by the way, took the hot corner and played like an all-star, making catches and throws so good that the Warriors-supporting crowd booed him.

The Wounded Warriors beat us 19-11, and as we lined up for the postgame attaboys, I thanked every one of them for their service. The games raised $18,000 and some much-needed attention for a tremendously compelling cause. Plus, I got a hit!

So, yes, I was sore the next morning, but I have legs to be sore, and after seeing what the Wounded Warriors have sacrificed for you and me, that soreness was a blessing of perspective to be treasured.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and news director of Newsradio 1370 WSPD. Email him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

WNWO new management team to build better content, community

Aimed at enhancing the on-air product and increasing community involvement, WNWO-TV has made changes to its top level management. Five employees, all from Fort Wayne’s Granite Broadcasting Corp., recently came to Toledo in a move made by WNWO’s owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group. Sinclair purchased WNWO from Barrington Broadcasting Group in 2013.

Lead anchor Jim Blue will transition his news director duties to newcomer Nicole Hahn, currently in the newly created position of assistant news director. Blue’s new title will be managing editor and lead anchor. John Nizamis, one of the five employees from Fort Wayne, has been named general manager, replacing Chris Topf.

Nizamis, who has worked in television sales for 30 years, said that in a market of Toledo’s size it is rare to have a lead anchor also serve as news director.

“In a sense, most anchors have that managing editor responsibility,” Nizamis said. “They’re really leading the charge on what they’re covering. The news director is much more of a management position because you have to worry about hiring and firing.”

In other changes, Charity Freeman was named general sales manager, replacing Sena Mourad-Friedman. Freeman served as the local sales manager for Granite, as well as an on-air local program host. Two other positions have been added, including Jason Ashmawi, promotions manager, and Emma Ashmawi, digital content manager. Both previously worked for Granite in producing and Web content management, respectively. Granite operates several Fort Wayne stations, including WPTA-21 (ABC), WISE-33 (NBC), Fort Wayne’s CW and MYTV Fort Wayne.

Nizamis said he realizes WNWO trails far behind in local ratings, but said the new faces are here to deliver more than numbers.

“It would be far too ambitious to say that we want to knock (Channels) 13 or 11 off the throne,” Nizamis said. “As long as we’re fighting the good fight, we’re going to be in good shape here. It goes beyond the ratings. First of all, it is a business. If we can increase ratings, we have an opportunity to increase revenue.

I’m trying to establish a new morale. I want them to walk with a new swagger. We want to be relevant. This is a good product in a good market.”

Nizamis said the station is also planning to add eight more positions – such as on-air talent, producers and photographers.

Sinclair group manager Dan Hoffman oversaw the switch in personnel, and said he wanted changes with familiarity.

“I wanted to bring in a team that all knew each other and worked together,” Hoffman said. “This was a matter of getting a group of people together. They all have the same hymnal. They get it. They know what they have to do.”

Active involvement in the community is a big part of what Hoffman wants them to do.

“We’re going to do well by doing good,” Hoffman said. “We’re going to get involved in the community, and put a product out that everyone can be proud of. I want my anchors to be out in the community, to serve on boards. We want to make a difference in the communities we serve. How can we help the communities that are viewing us? Can we be at their schools? Absolutely we can, and we want to.

It’s going to be required if you come and work for us. I’m not saying they didn’t do those things (before), but we’re going to do it at a whole new level. If they don’t move the needle, we’re going to at least give people a really good product.”

Nizamis likes what he he’s seen so far

“I have absolutely loved it (here),” Nizamis said. “I moved in Downtown, and it’s just, just awesome. I feel the energy. People here have been terrific, which is cool. Toledo should be proud of that, and I love what I’m seeing over on the riverfront. I’m jacked. This station can only get better; we’re excited about it.”

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